Today's Takeaway: Guerrilla Tactics and the Michigan Primary

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Rick Santorum speaks at a town hall meeting at the Tea Party and Republicans Uniting Nevada Conservatives.
(Ethan Miller/Getty)

Throwing a Wrench into the Michigan Primary Machine; NSA Declares 'Anonymous' a Threat to National Security; An Update on Syria; Race and Religion's Role in Making a Sports Hero; Electoral Demographics and a History of Presidential Primaries; 40th Anniversary of Nixon's Visit to China; NYPD Surveillance Program Monitored Muslim Students at 13 Colleges; 'Incident in New Baghdad': The Effects of War on a Soldier with a New Documentary; Detail on the Euro Zone Bailout of Greece; Race and the Story of Basketball Sensation Jeremy Lin

Finance ministers from the Eurozone have approved a second bailout to save Greece from bankruptcy. After 13 hours of negotiations mostly hinging on how much of Greece's debt will be reduced EU leaders agreed to a massive $172 billion bailout package. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christina Lagarde, says the deal allows Greece to get a hold of its finances.

In recent years cross-voting, the practice of supporting or voting for an opposing party's second-best interest, has become increasingly popular. For example, in 2008 Rush Limbaugh hoped to dilute some of Barack Obama's momentum by founding "Operation Chaos" which encouraged conservatives to vote for Hillary Clinton. And now with Michigan's open primary, the Daily Kos is calling for Michigan Democrats to vote for Rick Santorum in order to make things difficult for Mitt Romney.

Has Greece been saved for good? Euro zone leaders have agreed to a second bailout to save Greece from bankruptcy but Athens has to accept deep spending cuts and permanent monitoring. This has caused many Greeks to revolt. Joining The Takeaway is Steve Evans, correspondent for our partner the BBC.

In Anonymous's move away from denial of service attacks and toward real-world interactions — such as recent threats against the Los Zetas Cartel — the hacktivists have attracted the attention of the National Security Agency. In private meetings at the White House, NSA director General Keith Alexander warned that in a year or two the group could attack the energy grid and shut off power for millions.

The people of Yemen will go to the polls today to elect a new president. The elections come after a year of violent street protests to get rid of President Ali Saleh. Yemen is now thought to be the biggest base for Islamic militants in the world. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, the BBC's Middle East correspondent has been to Yemen to file this report.

Over the past two weeks, the "Linsanity" of New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin has swept across New York, and much of America. Breaking records for scoring and assisting in his first five games, many sports fans are celebrating. Meanwhile, many are wondering when was the last time a black athlete ignited the same type of passion.

Iran is warning it will take preemptive action against perceived enemies if it feels its national interests are threatened. The warning comes as the country bars a team of UN weapons inspectors from nuclear facilities. A spokesman for the country's foreign ministry says the group from the International Atomic Energy Agency will hold talks with Iran, but nothing more.

In a recent op-ed for The New York Times, writer Timothy Egan makes this observation about the voters turning out for GOP primary contests around the country: "There is no other way to put this without resorting to demographic bluntness: the small fraction of Americans who are trying to pick the Republican nominee are old, white, uniformly Christian and unrepresentative of the nation at large." He goes on to make this observation about the demographic of the Republican primary electorate: "They are much closer to the population of 1890 than of 2012."

After 22 years of mutual isolation and hostility, it was the trip that transformed the world. From February 21-28, 1972, U.S. president Richard Nixon met with Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, and traveled through Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai. In addition to formally normalizing relations between the U.S. and P.R.C., it was the first time the U.S. public had seen images of China since the communists took power.

The Associated Press has obtained a new report from the New York Police Department which provides a surprising portrait of just how far the NYPD's intelligence division went in a surveillance program targeting Muslims. The NYPD tracked closely the activities of Muslim student groups at 13 colleges in the northeast, monitoring their e-mails and taking notes on their activities.

How much will it cost Europe to keep Greece out of bankruptcy? $172 billion, that's how much. EU finance members gave approval to a second bailout package in Brussels overnight but Athens has to accept deep spending cuts and permanent monitoring. The chairman of the Euro group says the deal would secure Greece's future in the euro zone, but required the efforts of all parts of Greek society.

The Oscar-nominated documentary Incident in New Baghdad recounts the 2007 killings of two Reuters reporters by US attack helicopters, footage of which was released by WikiLeaks in 2010. Director Jim Spione [spee-OWN] joins The Takeaway to discuss his film.